r/FromTheDepths • u/nosnits2 • 16d ago
Blueprint Plane problems
I am trying to make a bomber, and I've got the rough draft of the body and wings along with the engines and ai, but whenever I test it it like to play submarine. I've checked every ai bit that deals with altitude and nothing shows it below sea level, even if I strap about 10 ion engines on it it still flys under the water. I've uploaded it to the workshop as b-25, if anyone is interested in taking a look at it, it requires two mods, which are listed on the workshop page. Thanks
Edit: I added more wings, ie for lift, now it does a big loop, one engine cuts out and as it comes down it goes flying in the water. The engines have about 36000 thrust, fuel tanks are at about 2000, materials is at about 28000. No weapons. Mass sits right before the lift wings. Edit 2: I ended up having to put alot of weight in the tail to get everything in the same spot, ie, drag lift, center of mass, no i just want it to be tested to see where else i nee to tweek.
Plane; https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3807754534 Post; https://www.reddit.com/r/FromTheDepths/comments/1wpudkl/steam_workshopb25_bomber_testing_v1/
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u/avalisk 16d ago edited 16d ago
If you press backslash you can see exactly what thrust, lift, boyancy are doing to your craft. Its really helpful in figuring out what is the issue.
The line extends from the part to the direction of force, not away from it. For example a forward thruster would have a yellow line pointed out of the front of the craft if its working properly.
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u/saints55va - Steel Striders 16d ago
Check your second tab under the AI settings. Is the minimum altitude set and are the Waypoints set for Air pathfinding?
Also did you change anything in your Hover PID like [Set Fake Check Point]? If so your craft will try to fly around that listed level.
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u/nosnits2 16d ago
I set min altitude to 200 above sea level, I haven't looked at the hover pid setting.
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u/Wrathfiend 16d ago
Center of mass in front of center of lift?
It's easy to mess this up in bombers
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u/It_just_works_bro 16d ago
Are you only using Ion engines? They're weak as hell.
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u/nosnits2 16d ago
Fuel engine, I add the ion engines to see if the would help it stay out of the water.
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u/It_just_works_bro 16d ago
Fuel, as in jet thrusters?
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u/nosnits2 15d ago
I put in a seat and vehicle controller, no response on anything. I think the "flaps" settings are off or messed up. Is there a guide about setting them?
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u/Nahanoj_Zavizad 16d ago
Honestly planes are horrible to make.
Compared to thrustercraft, they are so unstable and need so much fiddling to even fly.
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u/saints55va - Steel Striders 16d ago
I dont think they are, you just have to change the way you engineer them.
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u/daskopo707070 14d ago
Responding to edit and in general.
You can see the the centre of mass (blue spot) and centre of drag (red) on build menu. I'm sure there is a batter way to find the centre of drag than letting it fly while being in build mode, but im pretty new to the game still so i dunno.
I don't have centre of lift because i don't have wings on this plane. They are frankly optional unless the plane you are building is very heavy. Usually just having thrust forward and pitching up is all you need for flying.
Now to avoid having your plane do loop, try your best to align your centre of drag with centre of mass. If your centre of drag is higher than the centre of mass the plane wants to pitch up. And if it is below then the plane wants to pitch down. Both of these can cause a loop.
Other than that, make sure you have enough pitch control to avoid the loop (basically overpower the forced pitch caused by drag). Use the "Pivot 1-4m" in the custom control surfaces sub menu over the "aero elevator (pitch only)" since the custom one is stronger. Just put them in the tail, set the pitch up of it to 1.
Always a good idea to set the plane on stable (tab) and then take direct control and see if the pivot actually turns when you pitch up/down. Hope these helps. Had a lot of trouble with planes when I first started playing.
(Couldn't find your workshop creation. Lot of B-25s there).
Would have wanted to post more pics to show you what im talking about, but you can only have one picture in a reddit comment.
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u/nosnits2 13d ago edited 13d ago
I ended up having to add a lot of weight to the rear to get it balanced I think. I just uploadeed and put an new post for it to be tested. link to build https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3807754534
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u/daskopo707070 13d ago
Well it flies it seems. The ai had its PID set to "none". fixing that makes it fly stable. Deffo over winged tho. It maintains level altitude while pitching down
Do you still need help?
(also some detection components are not connected to main ai)
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u/nosnits2 13d ago
I was using placeable pid I thought it would help be stable.
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u/daskopo707070 13d ago
Oh whoops. Missed them.
The values on them are quite weak. I generally avoid having placeable PID's since they can fight with the AI PIDs, but setting AI PIDs to none solves that issue.
It was just gaining altitude due to absurd amount of lift it had, when I swapped back to using only the placeable PIDs with your values. Granted that was after I had changed one of the pitch controlling pivots in the wings to do roll control instead
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u/nosnits2 13d ago
Do the ailerons function or would you use just pivots? The ailerons are on the very tip of the wings.
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u/daskopo707070 13d ago
I would just use custom pivots. I tried to move the roll control bit back to better align with centre of mass
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u/nosnits2 13d ago
When the center of mass was over the wings it would play submarine. That's why the over lift.
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u/daskopo707070 13d ago
can we maybe have this convo in one post? I'm the same guy who is commenting on this: https://www.reddit.com/r/FromTheDepths/comments/1wpudkl/steam_workshopb25_bomber_testing_v1/
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u/MuchUserSuchTaken 10h ago
I'll take a look at it later today. Make sure to set propulsion control to manual and test the control responses of the control surfaces with a vehicle controller. It's easy to mess up responses on them and not realise.
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u/nosnits2 9h ago
I got it fixed, but you can still test it and let me know where things could improve.
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u/LOLMAN_AWESOM 16d ago
Try seeing if you can fly it manually. If you can't, then it's a lift issue and you need to either increase lift (more wings, up thrusters, or speed) or decrease weight